Silence Is The Enemy

Jackie is too young to remember the 14-year civil war in Liberia, from 1989 to 2003, when as many as three-fourths of women were raped. Jackie’s world is one of a bustling, recovering Liberia with a free press and democratically elected leaders.

Yet somehow mass rape survived the end of the war; it has been easier to get men to relinquish their guns than their sense of sexual entitlement. So the security guard at Jackie’s school, a man in his 50s, took the little girl to the beach where, she said, he stripped her and raped her. Finally, he ran off as she lay bleeding and sobbing on the sand.

Nothing I have heard or seen compares with what is going on in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where corporate greed, fueled by capitalist consumption, and the rape of women have merged into a single nightmare. Femicide, the systematic and planned destruction of the female population, is being used as a tactic of war to clear villages, pillage mines and destroy the fabric of Congolese society.

In 12 years, there have been 6 million dead men and women in Congo and 1.4 million people displaced. Hundreds and thousands of women and girls have been raped and tortured. Babies as young as 6 months, women as old as 80, their insides torn apart. What I witnessed in Congo has shattered and changed me forever. I will never be the same. None of us should ever be the same.

A number of bloggers are coordinating our efforts to call attention to this horrible situation and mobilize activism and financial support to end systematic mass rape in Africa. Here are some things you can do:

(2) Donate to Doctors Without Borders, who are leading the effort to provide medical treatment to women and girls who have been grievously harmed.

(3) Write to your representatives and senators in Congress to urge them to use the diplomatic power of the United States to end this horrible situation. You can use this directory to obtain the contact information for your representative and senators by typing in your zip code.

(4) You can blog about this yourself to call attention to our efforts.

UPDATE: A Facebook page has been created to help with coordinating our efforts.

UPDATE 2: Here is a more complete list of science blogs that are donating their revenues for this month to Doctors Without Borders. So get fucking clicking!

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